Preventing Crime and Delivering Justice

Debate between Kit Malthouse and Baroness Laing of Elderslie

Wednesday 11th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. We are not under huge time constraints today, which is unusual, so I will not put a time limit on. We will leave it up to people to judge for themselves how long they should speak, but I should just give an indication that 10 minutes is usually the maximum for a Back-Bench speech for all sorts of reasons that I do not need to explain to anyone who feels the atmosphere of this Chamber.

[Kit Malthouse]

She’s talking about you, Lloyd.

Murder of WPC Yvonne Fletcher

Debate between Kit Malthouse and Baroness Laing of Elderslie

Tuesday 22nd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

I will come to that point in a moment, if I may.

Following the Prime Minister’s meeting with the hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock in September 2020, the Home Office contacted the CPS in December of that year to ask whether it had received any more information on the case; it had not. The position remains the same as in 2017, which is that the CPS is not currently considering charges in the case. As with any case referred to the CPS by the police, a decision to prosecute is made in accordance with the code for Crown prosecutors, and a case must meet the evidential and public interest stages of the code test. In accordance with the code, the CPS will consider any new information referred to it by the police in relation to the case.

On the hon. Member’s question about evidence being withheld, it has been the long-standing policy of successive Governments not to comment on the existence or otherwise of intelligence material. I am therefore unable to confirm or deny the existence of any material that may or may not relate to the case.

The hon. Member asked for confirmation of whether the Government issued a comfort letter to Saleh Mabrouk. We are not aware of any evidence to suggest that any such letter ever existed or was ever issued.

In response to the hon. Member’s question regarding the extradition of Mr Mabrouk, the House should know that whether an extradition application is sought in any case is an operational decision for law enforcement and prosecution agencies. The UK Government, as a matter of long-standing policy and practice, will neither confirm nor deny that an extradition request has been made or received until such time as an arrest has been made in relation to the request.

On the question of a public inquiry, I am aware of the strong feeling in this case and of the early-day motion that the hon. Member tabled calling for such an inquiry. While of course we recognise the strength of feeling that the case evokes, the Government are not currently considering an inquiry into the death of PC Fletcher.

In closing, I would like to state once more that my thoughts are with PC Fletcher’s family, friends and colleagues. They continue to have my deepest sympathy. I, like many, have often stopped at the memorial stone in St James’s Square to consider a moment in our history that had a huge impact on many of us who were around at the time. I would also like to recognise and pay tribute again to the efforts of John Murray and the courage and resilience that he has shown in seeking justice for PC Fletcher. Finally, I thank the hon. Member for securing this debate. The murder of PC Fletcher was a heinous act that shocked our country to its core, and she will never be forgotten.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Indeed: she will never be forgotten.

Question put and agreed to.

Fire Safety Bill

Debate between Kit Malthouse and Baroness Laing of Elderslie

Consideration of Lords amendments & Ping Pong & Ping Pong: House of Commons
Wednesday 24th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)]

I beg to move, That this House agrees with Lords amendment 1.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Lords amendment 2, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 3, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 4, amendment (e) thereto, Government motion to disagree, and amendments (a) to (c) in lieu, amendments (f) and (g) in lieu, amendment (d) in lieu and amendment (i) in lieu.

Lords amendment 5, and Government motion to agree.

[Kit Malthouse]

It seems a long time since I spoke on this Bill in Committee in June last year. I am playing a small part in the Bill’s passage through both Houses, and I stand in today for the Minister for Security, my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire), who led on the Bill at Second Reading and on Report last year. I am sure everyone in this House wishes him a full recovery.

Lords amendments 1 and 5 were moved by the Government on Report following advice that the Home Office received from fire safety operational experts on how to commence the Fire Safety Bill. In Committee, I announced that the Home Office had established an independent task and finish group whose role was to provide a recommendation on the optimal way to commence this Bill. The group was chaired jointly by the National Fire Chiefs Council and the Fire Sector Federation, and it brought together experts from across the fire and housing sectors.

On 28 September, the task and finish group submitted its advice to the Home Office that the Bill should be commenced at once for all buildings in scope. The Government accepted this recommendation.

The group also recommended that responsible persons under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 should use a risk-based approach to carry out or review fire risk assessments, upon commencement, using a building prioritisation tool, and that the Government should issue statutory guidance to support this approach. The Government accepted this recommendation, which will support responsible persons. The Home Office, with support from the National Fire Chiefs Council and the Fire Sector Federation, will host the model once it has been finalised.

Lords amendment 1 will allow us to take forward the provision of statutory guidance to support that approach. The amendment ensures that the risk-based guidance, which will be issued by the Secretary of State to support commencement of the Bill for all relevant buildings, will have the appropriate status to incentivise compliance. It does this by stating explicitly that a court can consider whether a responsible person has complied with their duties under the fire safety order by complying with the risk-based guidance. Equally, if a responsible person fails to provide evidence that they have complied, it may be relied upon by a court as tending to support non-compliance with their duties under the order.

The amendment also creates a provision to allow the Secretary of State to withdraw the risk-based guidance, but this can be done only after consultation with relevant stakeholders. Our rationale for inserting this provision is that we believe a point will eventually be reached where, having followed a risk-based approach to prioritisation, responsible persons will have assessed all the fire safety risks for the external walls of their buildings. At that stage, there may no longer be a need for the guidance to remain in place.

I assure Members that the Government will commence the Bill at the same time as issuing the guidance, and Lords amendment 5 ensures that will happen. This amendment gained the support of the Opposition in the other place when put to a vote on Report. I also recall the comments of the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) in Committee, when she said this Bill should be commenced at once for all buildings in scope and that a risk-based approach, like the one modelled in her home town of Croydon, should be adopted.

One of the recurring themes during the passage of this Bill has been concern over the number of fire risk assessors with the skills to undertake work on external wall systems. The task and finish group considered this issue as it looked at how responsible persons will be able to update their fire risk assessments, given there is limited capacity in the fire risk assessment sector—primarily of fire engineers working on complex buildings.

The group’s recommendation for a risk-based approach to an all-at-once commencement, on which we are acting, is the most practical way to deal with what is a complex issue. Our approach sends a signal to the fire risk assessor sector—mainly fire engineers—that their expertise should be directed where it is needed most, to the highest-risk buildings.

I thank all members of the task and finish group for their work in developing advice to the Home Office. The group has provided an optimal solution for commencing the Fire Safety Bill, allowing the Government to introduce the provisions at the earliest opportunity. It is important that we continue the good work undertaken with those relevant stakeholders on the task and finish group to regularly monitor the effectiveness of the risk-based guidance and the building prioritisation tool. These provisions will allow us to take forward the recommendations from operational experts in the field of fire safety. I hope that hon. Members will support Lords amendments 1 and 5, as agreed in the other place.

Lords amendment 3 seeks to introduce a power that the Secretary of State must use to make regulations to establish and keep up to date a public register of fire risk assessments. As you have confirmed, Madam Deputy Speaker, this amendment engages financial privilege and will not be debated. The amendment invokes significant financial concerns. To provide a sense of the scale of costs, we can point to two things. First, based on the number of buildings requiring a fire risk assessment, our initial estimate is that the cost to the public purse of a public register of fire risk assessment is above £2 million per annum.

Secondly, these costs would likely be broadly commensurate with the expenditure of maintaining a database of energy performance certificates. That system was mentioned by Opposition colleagues in the other place, who stated that something similar should be introduced for fire risk assessments. The current database of energy performance certificates is housed centrally in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. The current costs for this are around £2 million per year, but under private contractual arrangements used previously, they were approximately £4 million a year. Notwithstanding the issue of financial privilege, I sympathise with the intent behind the amendment, and we will not rule out doing this in the future. However, there is a need for detailed policy consideration prior to implementation of such a database, which makes this the wrong time to impose this measure in primary legislation.

I raise just a couple of points to underline our view that the amendment is not appropriate. The amendment would, in effect, create a legal duty on responsible persons to make publicly available the full fire risk assessment for all buildings falling within the scope of regulation owing to the fire safety order. In its current form, the amendment would potentially mean that anyone would be able to access the fire risk assessments for a wide range of premises, including schools, hospitals, care homes and Government buildings. We would have concerns over the risk that posed to security, particularly if the information was accessed by somebody with malicious intent.

Linked to the security issue is the level of information that could and should be made available if a system of recording fire risk assessments is created. For example, a fire risk assessment can often be technical and is very different from an energy performance certificate. It may, for example, prove more effective and transparent to publish a summary of a fire risk assessment, rather than the full document. However, the Government agree with the principle of residents being able to access vital fire safety information for the building in which they live, and we propose introducing legislative provision to allow them to do so in our fire safety consultation. It is important to take a proportionate and appropriate approach to sharing information with residents. However, I hope that hon. Members will understand my concerns and the reason why the Government will resist the amendment.

Lords amendment 2 would place in primary legislation several specific requirements on the owner or manager of a building that contained two or more domestic premises. I recognise that many in this House and the other place wish to see legislative change on this as soon as possible. The Government share that objective, which is why we committed to implementing and legislating for the Grenfell inquiry’s recommendations in our manifesto. The Fire Safety Bill is the first step towards this. It was always intended to be a short, technical piece of legislation designed to clarify that structure, external walls and flat entrance doors should be included within the fire safety order. We need to deliver on that as soon as possible, to ensure that fire risk assessments are updated to take account of the risks in those areas. We intend to implement the areas specified in Lords amendment 2 through regulations, and as such the amendment is unnecessary.

It is not helpful, I have to say, for the House to keep returning to this issue. It risks causing confusion, as we saw through misleading media coverage of Commons Report stage. It also raises doubts in relation to the Government’s commitment to implementation, when all along we have been crystal clear about our intentions. I reassure the Grenfell community, who I know were distressed by the publicity at Committee stage, and those in the House and the wider public that the Government remain absolutely steadfast in our commitment to implement the inquiry’s recommendations.

I am sure everyone across the House accepts the importance of consulting when proposing significant changes to legislation. The importance of that was underlined by the Grenfell inquiry chair, who said that it was important that his recommendations

“command the support of those who have experience of the matters to which they relate.”

Furthermore, the National Fire Chiefs Council’s published response to our fire safety consultation states:

“NFCC supports the Government’s approach to publicly consulting on how to implement the Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 1 recommendations. This consultation provides an opportunity to gather wider views on how to practically deliver the recommendations in a way that brings the maximum benefits to public safety.”

Death of PC Yvonne Fletcher

Debate between Kit Malthouse and Baroness Laing of Elderslie

Tuesday 23rd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

Madam Deputy Speaker, it is not often that Adjournment debates result in a positive action, but I am pleased that we are able to work together to see where we can get to. As I say, these decisions are made by a committee that looks at particular incidents and individuals, but we will work with my right hon. Friend and others to put the evidence together and to help him make the case for the award that he seeks for this remarkable individual, who exhibited the best of British policing and for whom there is long and strong memory into the future.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Indeed, it is not often that we have such a moving and positive Adjournment debate. I, too, thank the right hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), as well as congratulating him on his elevation to the Privy Council.

Question put and agreed to.

Policing (England and Wales)

Debate between Kit Malthouse and Baroness Laing of Elderslie

Wednesday 10th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

This has been an interesting and stimulating debate, with some great contributions from both sides of the House. Before I start, I want to thank all hon. Members for the tributes they have paid to our brave police officers across the country.

This has been possibly the most challenging period for UK policing since the second world war. We have been asking police officers to do jobs that we never thought they would have to do in our lifetime, and they have done it with skill, aplomb and courage. The fact that many of them have fallen victim to the virus—indeed, a number have lost their life—is a cause of great sorrow, but I know they will take comfort from the support that hon. Members on both sides of the House have unequivocally given to them this afternoon.

I also express gratitude for the overwhelming revulsion at the increase in assaults on police officers that we have seen over the past few months and the past couple of years. It is something that we are determined to tackle as a Government, and it appears to me that we will have cross-party support for that measure when it comes forward in legislation later this year.

We had a number of good and interesting speeches throughout the debate, and I will address some of the themes that have been raised by hon. Members, rather than individual speeches. First, I want to address a couple of themes pursued by the Opposition Front Benchers and, in fact, by Opposition Members throughout the debate.

First, I want to address an issue raised by the shadow Home Secretary right at the start, when he accused me and the Home Secretary of being “soft on crime”. Well, I do not think that the Home Secretary has ever been accused of being soft on anything, let alone crime. Given my own record of fighting crime in London—I am proud of the contribution that I made—I think that is an unfair accusation. The hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) was boasting about Labour’s performance in the crime survey, so she will of course know that, according to the crime survey, overall crime and violent crime is below the level it was in 2010. Although that number has stabilised and we have seen a different pattern—certainly from violence in recorded police crime—if she is judging us on that particular measure, as she is judging her party, she has to accept that crime remains below the 2010 figure. Nevertheless, there are some significant issues that need to be addressed and I will come to those in a moment.

There was a strong theme in Opposition speeches—I note that there was no Liberal Democrat participation, but nevertheless a small number of Labour Members have participated—that was effectively accusing the Government over the last 10 years of somehow cutting police officer numbers or cutting the resources to police as a discretionary choice. In fact, as you will know, Madam Deputy Speaker, we were dealing with the consequences of the largest crash that we have seen in this country—indeed, the largest global crash seen since the 1930s. It was a crash brought about by deregulation of the financial services industry largely propelled by, I guess, Labour party dogma in terms of financial services. We have traded this argument many times during the nearly 18 months in which I have been in this job. In fact, it was a debate that was had to a high degree during the campaign in the run-up to the 2019 election.

The British people are smart enough to realise that where the public finances are concerned, we have to cut the cloth accordingly. They recognise that post that crash, we had to do something to get the balance sheet in order, and that required restrictions in expenditure across the whole public sector. To be honest, given what we have had to do during this pandemic to support people across the country and their businesses, thank God we did. If we had not, God knows what parlous state the finances would be in now. As it is, we have been able to get through this as best we can, supporting neighbourhoods, communities and businesses across the country because we rebuilt the balance sheet and rebuilt sound public finances. I make no apology for that at all.

A number of themes were promulgated during the debate, and I will address them in turn. First, my congratulations to the team from Bedfordshire for their pincer manoeuvre. Happily for them, I have recently visited Bedfordshire police and seen for myself the burdens that crime—particularly serious and organised crime—places on that force. I also had a discussion with the chief constable earlier this week about the challenges that that force is facing at the moment. I think I am due to meet my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) and residents from Leighton Buzzard quite soon to talk about crime in his area; we will certainly have a look at that.

The key theme raised by a number of Members across the House was the funding formula. I am happy to reiterate the commitment that I have made from this Dispatch Box in the past, which is that we are going to review it this side of the election. I am happy to say that the scoping work has already started in the Home Office. We are hopeful of bringing forward the various steps we have to go through for the funding formula in the future. The hon. Member for Croydon Central is quite right that, as a Back Bencher, I railed against the existing funding formula, not least because of the effect that it has on Hampshire police, but at the moment it remains the most reliable—if slightly elderly—formula that we have for allocating resources, so until we manage to devise a new one, the work for which we will be doing soon, I am afraid that we have to stick with it.

A number of Members quite rightly raised the issue of vaccinations for police officers. As I have said publicly and, indeed, in meetings with the federation and others, both the Home Secretary and I have made the point to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care and through Government that police officers face a particular exposure to the virus that we think necessitates their being prioritised once the first four groups have been dealt with. That decision is not in our hands—it sits with the independent committee that makes the decisions about who gets vaccinated—but nevertheless we, along with the federation and others, have made that point strongly.

A number of Members, not least my hon. Friends the Members for West Dorset (Chris Loder) and for North Norfolk (Duncan Baker), made representations about county lines and the violence that is being promulgated throughout the country by drugs gangs. We are making enormous strides in confronting those gangs, with 550 county lines closed down in the past 12 months, and we have doubled the money that we are putting into county lines, with a further £20 million being allocated this year and more money going into dealing with serious and organised crime and the upstream effects of drugs.

Over past four or five years, the issue of drugs has become central to crime in this country and, as a Government, we are determined to confront it. I think it is fair to say that every time I speak to the Prime Minister he has an obsession with the impact of drugs in society and wants us to work as hard as we can to roll back the effects of that horrendous industry in our neighbourhoods, towns and cities. Over the next few months, Members will see an even more assertive approach to it.

Let me turn to one or two particular specific themes that were raised. My hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) made an excellent speech touching on several themes that were echoed by a number of other Members. Along with my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Imran Ahmad Khan), he pointed out that it is not about how big a budget is; it is about what we do with it. Much of that comes down to the collaboration between the police and crime commissioner and the local chief constable. Given that we are approaching an election for police and crime commissioners, it is no surprise that we heard a number of, shall we say, political interventions and speeches, with a view towards that collaboration and helping people to put their cross in the right box.

Police and crime commissioners can have an enormous impact on performance in their area. Alongside the new National Policing Board and the performance board that sits underneath it, we are going to do our best to make sure that it is about not just the budget but the effect, the focus and a drive for change in every single police area throughout the country. I hope people will see that in future.

My hon. Friend the Member for Kettering also raised ANPR as an issue, and, in correspondence to me, a number of Members have previously referred to traffic police and the need to grip the transport network. We believe that is the key to fighting crime.

My hon. Friend the Member for Kettering—I am privileging him because he is one of the few Members who is actually present—also raised the issue of taser roll-out. He will know that last year we announced £10 million of extra taser funding to allow chiefs to roll tasers out to those who wish to use them. Using a taser is often less impactful, shall we say, and likely to cause less injury than hitting somebody with an ASP, and it provides officers with protection in a way that perhaps other defensive equipment may not. We are keen to see that those officers who want a taser can acquire one to use for their own protection. I hope that when we bring forward in legislation the police covenant, which will contain a commitment from the Government to look towards the safety and wellbeing of police officers, my hon. Friend will support that as enthusiastically as he has offered his support this afternoon.

Finally—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] I hear murmuring from the Whips. I had a challenge from a number of Members, not least my hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller), about the Government’s commitment to increasing the number of police officers by 20,000 over last year and the next two years. As I said on Monday in Home Office questions, to me that commitment is as strong as the ravens’ to the Tower, and the legend goes that should the ravens ever leave the tower, the kingdom will fall. Our commitment to the 20,000 police officers is about as rock-solid as it gets. If we fail to achieve that target—I am confident that we will—there will obviously be significant implications, not least for me, so we will be working very hard to ensure that, whatever the disposition of police officers over the next two or three years, we get to that 20,000 by the target date.

Finally, Members raised the burden that covid has placed on police forces and the financial cost to them over the last few months. I am happy to say that later this week, we will make further announcements about more money that we will be giving to police forces—we are finalising the figures at the moment—on top of the £30 million that we have given them in the interim. I hope that that means we can round off this year as one of the most generous for policing in the last decade, if not the most generous, and move into a second year that continues the trajectory of growth and performance as we drive down crime across the whole country.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That the Police Grant Report (England and Wales) for 2021-22 (HC 1162), which was laid before this House on 4 February, be approved.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I have now to announce the result of today’s deferred Division on the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (All Tiers and Self-Isolation) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2021, statutory instrument No. 97. The Ayes were 526 and the Noes were 24, so the Ayes have it. I will briefly suspend the House in order that the necessary arrangements for the next business can be made.

[The Division list is published at the end of today’s debates.]